Attorney: LI brokerage wrongly accused in fair housing lawsuit

A Long Island real estate brokerage was wrongly accused of engaging in fair housing discrimination by a national housing rights nonprofit because of a case of mistaken identity, an attorney for the nonprofit told Newsday.

Homes by Mara, a Syosset-based brokerage, was named in a fair housing lawsuit filed by Housing Rights Initiative Thursday along with 11 other real estate companies and brokers.

But John Navaretta, CEO and general counsel for Homes by Mara, told Newsday the firm was not involved in leasing the two-family home in Woodbury that is described in HRI’s lawsuit. An agent at Homes by Mara has the same name as another agent at a different firm that had been associated with the listing.

Matthew Handley, an attorney at Handley, Farah & Anderson in Washington D.C. who is representing Housing Rights Initiative, acknowledged the error in an email to Newsday on Friday.

“The name of the person on the listing that gave rise to the claim against Homes by Mara matched the name of a broker at Homes by Mara,” he said. “It has now been clarified to us that that person is different than the Homes by Mara agent of the same name, so we plan to discontinue the claims against Homes by Mara.”

Navaretta said he had not yet received confirmation from HRI's attorneys that they planned to discontinue the case against the brokerage as of 5 p.m. Friday, and the company was still weighing its legal options. 

HRI’s lawsuit alleges the defendants engaged in housing discrimination when they told investigators posing as prospective renters that they couldn't use housing choice vouchers, also known as Section 8 vouchers, to pay their rent.

Housing providers and real estate professionals in Nassau County that refuse to rent to a person using a housing voucher, or other lawful sources of income, violate state Human Rights Law as well as local law.

 In its lawsuit, HRI said one of its investigators called to inquire about the unit in the Woodbury house, which was posted on Zillow for $2,300 a month in September 2022. The lawsuit had alleged a Homes by Mara representative who answered said the apartment was available, but when the tester asked about using a Section 8 voucher, the agent replied, “Section 8, I can’t.” 

Navaretta noted a phone number listed in the lawsuit is not associated with Homes by Mara.

“I just don’t understand. I can’t fathom how Homes by Mara got attached to this,” he said. “They got it so wrong with us that we basically have some serious issues now that we have to fight off, and that’s not sitting well with us.”

Handley, HRI’s attorney, said he doesn’t expect the mistake to affect its case against the 11 other Long Island defendants named in the lawsuit filed Thursday in state Supreme Court in Mineola.  

“HRI’s investigation has uncovered source-of-income discrimination is rampant both in Long Island and in the greater New York City metropolitan area, so our hope is that through these lawsuits we bring an end to that," he said. 

Handley shared an email from Jan. 13 showing HRI attempted to reach out to a general inbox listed on Homes by Mara’s website to share its allegations and settle the claims. It had requested a response by Jan. 27.  

Christopher Gorman, a real estate attorney and partner at Abrams Fensterman in Lake Success, who is not involved in the litigation, agreed that the mistake is unlikely to affect HRI’s case against the other defendants. He said plaintiffs’ attorneys have an obligation to conduct an investigation before bringing lawsuits to ensure they’re not frivolous, but the threshold to prove such a case is high.

“Proving they so poorly conducted their due diligence that they should be sanctioned, that’s a very high bar,” Gorman said.

By Jonathan LaMantia

jonathan.lamantia@newsday.com@jonlamantia

Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain's New York Business.